As a kid, I had the opportunity to watch the first few UFC events with the help of a rigged cable box that hooked us up with every free pay-per-view (including The Playboy Channel, when it was all crimped-hair and Z-cup plastic titties). These days, I haven’t missed an event in 2+ years, I watch the pre & post-fight press conferences and devour every tidbit of news I can find online. Hell, I even call into Ariel Helwani’sThe MMA Hour to comment on the hot topics of the day. At the very least, I guess you can call me an ‘enthusiast’.

So when I stumbled onto a tweet from UFC fighter Chris Camozzi telling his followers to check out my music, I was buggin. Here’s a young cat from Colorado who fights in the world’s premier MMA organization in my favorite sport, has been featured on Season 11 of SPIKE TV’s The Ultimate Fighter and just happens to be a fan of the music. When synergy presents itself like that, you gotta roll with it. So, after some ‘back & forthing’ via Twitter and some @reply encouragement from mutual friends, I decided to make an exclusive walkout song for his fight at UFC 127 this Saturday (02.26.11).

Never Cagey On The Details:

I sent Chris a couple beats to choose from and once we had a sound locked down, I could write. The week got real heavy schedule-wise and it basically came down to a “Damn! The UFC needs the song by tomorrow!” message, which left me scrambling like a motherfucker. Basically, this gave me 24-hours to write, record, mix and master a song. Not that I haven’t done that before, but let’s just say I’m not a big fan of rushing. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to cross something off of my bucket list, I buckled down and pulled an all nighter. “Bang” was born.

The title is a reference to the term alot of fighters and media use when referring to ‘slugging it out’. If you’re a cat that likes to “Stand & Bang”, then you’re a dude that’s much happier to trade punches to the face than make use of the ground or clinch against the cage. Lyrically, I wanted to do something that referenced SOME MMA stuff without going overboard hokey-town and name-dropping a bunch of fighters. IMO, that’s going for the knee-jerk response and it also would’a been awkward for a fighter to walk out in the mindset to fight while hearing a bunch of other dude’s names being shouted out. S’just weird, so I kept it as neutral as I could, while weaving in a bunch of double entendres. I think it works much better than me saying shit like “I’ma turn you to an Ice Man like Chuck Liddell!” ZzzZzZZzz (and outdated as fuck).

All in all, I’m real happy with how it came out and hella amped for this Saturday. I hope you’ll join me in collectively wishing the kid the best out in Australia for the big fight this weekend. It’s a big step up to fight on an actual UFC PPV card for the world to see (not the prelims!) and this is a big opportunity for him to move up in the ranks. It’s a real honor for me to be a part of my favorite sport in any way I can. In the meantime, I’d love to see someone put together an MMA KO/Sub Highlight video to this joint. The illest one gets posted to the blog.

Wooo I sure wasn’t expecting brand new Tonedeff to drive home to today but I love it! Sounds like a mix of Punk, Let’s Go and some pseudo dubstep lol definitely a great walkout song I’ll try to catch the fight this weekend for sure

Have been really excited about this from the start. Absolutely love the track, been waiting to hear a Tonedeff over a grimey electronic beat like that for a while too. Hopefully we’ll get to hear some similar tracks sometime in the future.

Good luck to Chris and I hope somebody makes one of those compilation videos, If I knew anything about the sport I know I would.

This track is crazy. I’m not a UFC fan or nothin, but I can definitely dig it - the lack of ‘name dropping’ also helps in that matter.. and like everyone else is pointing out, the 2nd verse is WILD. Great stuff, Tone!

So yeah, the UFC didn’t allow Camozzi to use the song. He had a day’s notice to change it last minute. Odd, too…cause the UFC itself tweeted about the song and everything. No idea what happened exactly, but he said he’d try to find out. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know. Bummer though.